Model Minority Stereotype: Reader Reactions to Media Portrayals of East Asian Students

In 2010, Canada’s Maclean’s Magazine published an article titled “Too Asian?” (which has since been renamed “The Enrollment Controversy”) where the authors unwittingly upheld the model minority stereotype, depicting East Asians (individuals of Chinese, Japanese, or Korean ancestry) as highly intelligent, hardworking, and ambitious, but also as “too smart”, socially incompetent, and self-isolating. The article was immediately met with a massive backlash from Asian and non-Asian readers alike for its racist undertones and unqualified generalizations and stereotypes of East Asian Canadians. The comments from these readers provide a rich fount of naturalistic, unfiltered data that can help us understand the public’s perception of these contested stereotypes. A total of 580 reader comments are being coded into several categories such as perceptions of the article as racist and endorsement/rejection of the stereotypes presented. These codes are contrasted for self-identified East Asian and non-Asian commenters in order to distinguish the unique perspectives and experiences of East Asians in Canada. Preliminary analyses indicate that both East Asians and non-Asians buy into the positive aspects of the stereotype (e.g. smart, hardworking), but that they differ in their reactions to the negative stereotype components (e.g. unsocial). By carefully analyzing the responses to the Maclean’s article, we can begin to paint a clearer picture of the model minority stereotype within the Canadian socio-cultural context and begin to understand its effects on those who are subjected to it.